Welcome back to another read-through of the Wheel of Time saga. This time I tackle Book 3, The Dragon Reborn. (spoiler alert, Rand is the Dragon Reborn haha)

Prologues suck, and this one was kind of boring until I got in the groove. Jaret Byar, who was (dead) Bornhald’s right-hand man, stands before Lord Captain Commander of the Children of the Light Pedron Niall (he’s old). There are civil wars and regular wars all over the land. There are false Dragons popping up like weeds. One in particular is named Rand al’Thor. Byar presents a chalk drawing of the lad, which Niall scoffs at! Like this: pah!

Byar namedrops Perrin as the “Darkfriend” who betrayed them to the Aes Sedai, who must have been the ones who fought against them outside of Falme. Obviously! Right?! Anyway, he’s going to go tell Bornhald’s son that his father kicked the bucket.

A Child of the Light named Carridin (not to be confused with Carradine, who hanged himself in Thailand while jerking it in his hotel) enters the chamber to relay his account of the events. It was Darkfriends, Lord Captain Commander Pedron Niall, sir. Bornhald was most certainly one, but then he was fighting against them for some reason, and now we’ll never know the truth since he’s dead as a doornail now. As for this Rand kid, Carridin promises to kill him and all his followers come summer. Niall needles Carridin a bit and asks him why he wasn’t at Toman Head supporting Bornhald. Carradin claims he had other more important tasks at hand (like playing Metroid Prime). Niall ain’t having it.

Niall tells Carridin he has a new fucking task: don’t kill Rand and allow him to instill panic and chaos among the people. Then, eventually, the Children of the Light will move in and kill him themselves. The people will thank them, and they will have the power. Cool? And if Rand dies, or Niall dies, then Carridin dies. Cool??

Next, Niall’s own man Ordeith (who has been sneakily eavesdropping) tells more of Rand and how he’s from the Two Rivers and how much of a nasty little Darkfriend he is. He also knows of two other Darkfriends from Two Rivers: Mat and Perrin. Niall is like “whuuuuut” and has some plans in light of this new revelation…

Next, Carridin gets accosted by a Myrddraal in his own chambers. All like “grrr, I’m a shadow man”. Turns out Carridin is a secret servant of the Dark One. Carridin explains to the Myrddraal that he was called back here by Niall, and the Myrddraal is like “you work for me, bitch”. Carridin is warned that for every month Rand isn’t dead the Myrddraal will kill a member of his family until no one is left. And then he’ll kill Carridin. Bye.

Carridin is in a tight spot! What to do?! What to do?! He’ll die either way. Good thing I don’t care about this character one iota.

Prologue over. That took too fucking long.